Newsletters: are they right for your organistion?

This week at CV! was all about redirecting and streamlining the organisation’s newsletter. Management thought that the newsletter was too much of a reproduction of the website and so we spent a large portion of the day brainstorming new and creative ways to make the newsletter exciting and relevant.

Newsletters are taught at university as one of the main forms of communication between an organisation and its stakeholders, however this tool is not always right for every organisation.

It is important to analyse whether or not a newsletter will actually be read by an organisations stakeholders or is even  a necessary portal of communication.

Once a clear direction and purpose for the newsletter was established, it was much easier to develop the content and streamline all of the information within the newsletter to ensure that it wasn’t mirroring the same information that members can receive by going onto the website.

It is so important that newsletters remain relevant and can hold the readers attention, otherwise its production (which I now understand is extremely time consuming) is pointless.

It’s easy to see how organisation’s external communications can easily become sidetracked and take an undesired direction without some structure!

 

Another thing to take away from interning at CV! this week is the time that planning takes. Without proper planning, marketing collateral is not as effective as it could be and this planning can take days and days of brainstorming to perfect!

Some ways in which we have made our newsletter more interesting and interactive now include:

-          A “Fun Facts” section

-          Images of members and a “call to action” for members to find more pictures on CV!’s Facebook Page

-          Volunteer Interviews and personal accounts

With the first newsletter going out next week, I’m hoping the changes will be well received by the newsletters readership!